Alchemical writing often develops the idea of a physical or analogical correspondence between heaven and earth: a relationship most fre- quently and conveniently expressed by the use of the seven planetary symbols (Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) to denote the seven metals (usually gold, silver, quicksilver, copper, iron, tin and lead respectively).

Therefore, rather than attempting to establish an exhaustive inventory of visual forms in medieval alchemy or a premature synthesis, the purpose of this article is to sketch major trends in visualization and to exemplify them by their earliest appearance so far known.

However the alchemical source of the early fourteenth century also explicitly maintained that knowledge of the secret of secrets involved an understanding of the hidden forces within the earth, and this in turn would bring earthly power. The most obvious manifestation of this interest in alchemical secrets lay in the belief that controlled experimentation with mercury and sulphur could effect transmutation of base metals into gold.

The fool is one of the most popular and stable character types throughout cultures and times. This is especially true of medieval Europe. The fool, sometimes a jester, sometimes a clown or a trickster, is always recognizable through his abnormal appearance.

Splendor Solis oder Sonnenglanz is the title of an illuminated manuscript that can rightfully be called one of the principal works of the alchemical tradition (fig. 1). The text survives in many witnesses dating from the early sixteenth to the nineteenth century, of which Harl. MS. 3469 is definitely the most famous and best preserved example.

The Czech Renaissance man of letters Vaclav Hajek of Libocany explained the representations of kingfishers and half naked bathmaidens that he saw painted on some Prague buildings, as records of saucy affairs from the life of the King Bohemia Wenceslas IV.

The medieval world view was marked by a deep division between art and nature. Stemming partly from Aristotle, and partlyfrom other Greek, Latin, and Arabic sources, this view placed strict boundaries on the conceptual limits of technical innovation.

No one knew the risks and rewards of magic better than Agrippa. His notorious handbook, De occulta philosophia, circulated in manuscript by 1510, though it was printed only in 1533, over the complaints of Dominican inquisitors.

The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing I: Images and Objects Sponsor: AVISTA: The Association Villard de Honnecourt for the Interdisciplinary Study of Medieval Technology, Science, and Art and […]

LETTING THE GENIE OUT OF THE BOTTLE: EVOLUTION OF AROMATHERAPY THROUGH THE AGES Lyubetska, Valeria (University of Manitoba) The Proceedings of the 11th Annual HISTORY OF MEDICINE DAYS, FACULTY OF MEDICINE THE […]

A Previously Unidentified Fragment of ‘Pearce the Black Monke Upon the Elixir’ in MS. Mellon 43 Timmermann, Anke Marginalia, Vol.1 (2005) Abstract Among the manuscripts of the Mellon collection, which […]

Examines the development of the science of chemistry in the Arabic world, from its religious and philosophical background, and focusing on two famous Islamic scholars - Jabir ibn Hayyan and Muhammad ibn Zakariyaa Razi.